February 14th

Happy Valentine's Day! This is a little off topic, but I want to sum up my journey, as it were, before I go on sharing sections from my journal. Over the past six months or so, I've been in a period of a lot of learning and growth in a relatively short period of time, and I want to look back.


My parents, their parents and my siblings and I had been born into a church so legalistic that we followed much of the Levitical law. These laws were called "Standards." The more a person could perfectly uphold these Standards, the more holy their life and the more favor they received from God, and the closer they were to His perfect will for their life. The further they moved from these Standards, the more sullied and compromised they became, falling further and further behind God's perfect will, running the risk of His wrath and suffering.


As a child, I expected to suffer and strive and to look, act, speak, and think exactly according to the Standards and doctrine of the church. Outwardly, I put on a lovely performance, usually. Inwardly, I suffered a noxious combination of anxiety, shame, fear, pride and entitlement.


When I was sixteen years old, my parents' lives began to fall apart when they could no longer hold in all the abuse and pain and hurt that they had experienced as children and throughout their lives. The church at this time was also in chaos, as some wanted to become more mainline Christian and others wanted to hold to the old traditions. In the end, the church split.


My parents, questioning the beliefs and doctrine of the church they had grown up in, began to attend a small Pentecostal church. I had experienced the presence and love of Jesus in a profound and inexplicable way when I was in Middle School, which caused me to love Him very much. This love for Jesus was kindled in me like a consuming flame once in this new church.


During that time, I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, spoke in tongues immediately afterward and for hours at a time in the evenings. I had a fierce, almost painful longing for Jesus that drove me to that kind of prayer. I don't think there are words in any human language that could have contained or expressed the hunger that I had for God.


I experienced the weight, warmth and the light of the presence of God in nearly every service and assumed that this was a normal course of events. I was prophesied over many times and also began to anticipate it. During those times, the presence of God around me and in me was such a wonderful, heady sensation that I wanted it as many times as He allowed me to have it.


Despite all this, I did not live up to everyone's expectations and instead took a sudden, devastating nose dive into a terrible relationship that became an emotionally and verbally abusive marriage that ended a year later when he refused to continue with any kind of marriage counseling and then slept with a coworker.


When I emerged from this, I was twenty-two years old, divorced and uneducated, with no idea what I wanted from life or who I was, other than a failure and a terrible disappointment. There followed almost a decade of mistakes, and false starts when I tried to pull myself up from the backslide, but never managing, and all the while, a long slow healing process, culminating in three years of trauma therapy from abuse I had endured as a child.


When I was thirty, I met and married my loving husband Keith-my husband is a staff sergeant and a tank commander, and served two tours in Iraq, but he now serves as a Cadre in the Warrior Transition Battalion, where he is responsible for the well being of wounded and disabled soldiers from all different ranks and companies as they heal and transition to either a new job in the army or out into civilian life.


We were married a month before he departed for his second tour in Iraq. When he came home safe a year later, we tried to get pregnant, but it didn't happen, and I was diagnosed with infertility, the cause unknown. We wanted to adopt, but we couldn't begin the process, because the army was moving us to Georgia.


Once we were in Georgia, Keith applied for and was granted his position in the WTB unit and because of this, was given a raise and a two year stay, which gave us open door to pursue adoption.


Also we began, for the first time, to look for a church to join. This process turned out to be confusing and unsettling- I didn't know how to sort through all the differing beliefs, doctrines and assumptions about God that I knew where like a terrible weight pressing down on me.


Instead, one day in the autumn of 2011, I began to read the Bible for the first time in more than ten years. I wanted simply to see Jesus, so I started to read in the Gospel of John and it came alive to me in a way I had never known before and I felt the presence of Jesus all around me as I read. When I stopped reading, Jesus was still with me and when I woke in the morning, He was still with me.


I continued to read the Scriptures all day long for days at a time, starting with the Gospel of John, beginning in the Message version and switching to others over time. I read that Gospel over and over again until I longed for more of Jesus and began the process over again in Matthew.


Then I read the four Gospels over and over again until again I longed for more of Jesus, so I began to read the Old Testament and all the way through. This entire time, I felt the presence of Jesus close to me as I read and when I spoke to Him, He would answer. Jesus' presence was so distinct that often it was as though I knew where He was in the room.


Whenever I was caught in deep and intense religious fear from my childhood, I felt myself bundled in His robe- this was a distinct spiritual perception. I knew Jesus was behind me, close and loving and protective, and I could feel myself being bundled up like a child. Jesus would remind me that my life was hidden in Him and that my righteousness came from Him.


Once as I was reading again the terrifying warnings of disobeying God, I said to Jesus, very sincerely, "I'm so glad I wasn't born under the Old Covenant!"


Even then, Jesus replied, you would have been Mine- you would have heard My voice and been called by My name.


Because I had no other way of understanding Jesus' presence, I began to wonder if I was going to die and go to Heaven or go through intense suffering or both, and that Jesus was with me the way He was because He was preparing me for it.


When I dared to ask Jesus if I was going to die, He replied, I have come that you might have life, and that you might have it abundantly.


I assumed Jesus was reassuring me on an overarching principle and not telling me the specifics, since I knew that in Him, I had eternal and abundant life whether here or there. One night in December I was reading about a woman's testimony of her near death experience and seeing Jesus. She loved being there and being with Jesus so much that she didn't want to go back, but Jesus told her that her work wasn't finished.


As I was reading this, Jesus was pouring into my heart the certain knowledge that my life's work here also wasn't finished and it wasn't His time yet for me to go. There were three things Jesus told me to focus on particularly- the first was to love my husband, the second was to continue to pursue adoption- and now of course to love, nurture and raise our lovely daughter, who is just now eighteen months old. The third was to continue to write about Jesus.


So I went on doing those things- obviously they are in fact perfectly tailored to me. During this time, my relationship with Jesus continued to deepen and grow.


I went through a period of time where my longing to be with Him and to see Him was so overwhelming that there were times when I had to stop what I was doing and drop to my knees and pour this longing out like something too heavy to carry even one step further. I remember walking in the park one day and after a while, I couldn't continue to walk and stood there bent forward with my arms around my stomach, groaning aloud and in tears.


Many times, I felt I was being ungrateful to Jesus- I already felt His presence near me day and night, I already heard His voice and had come to know the depths of His love and mercy, so I didn't know what else I could want from Him, but I couldn't contain or deny the longing- some days, it was all I could do to carry it.


One night as tears were trickling down my face into the pillowcase, I cried out to Jesus, "Why am I like this? What are You doing to me? What do You want from me?"


Then I saw something like a veil and through this veil, I saw Jesus, bending forward in grief and longing that was much greater than my own, and Jesus reminded me of how He wept as He walked to Lazarus' tomb, and how much He suffered, knowing that those He loved had suffered, wondering where He was and why He hadn't come in time. Through all that, He knew a greater joy was in store for them.


As time went on, I found myself grasping after and trying to control the presence of Jesus and trying to do little things to earn it, so that things that I had done once as a spontaneous gesture of joy and love were becoming rote.


I think because of this, and because it's an important lesson to learn, I went through a fallow season where my spirit was like a resting field, or a field in winter. I had to rest and let everything that Jesus had told me sink down deep in the waiting quiet. I had to surrender control and to trust Jesus no matter what I felt or heard.


In February of 2013, my longing returned. Only this time, my faith and trust in Jesus had gone way down deep in the quiet time. I gave my whole heart to Jesus in worship and adoration and longing, without reserve, and that is when I began to see Jesus and to be with Him, and He began to teach me what it meant.


A few months into this, Jesus told me something in terms of what He wanted me to do that I have never forgotten. He told me that He would not call me to use the gifts He had given me in a public, official office or ministry but that He would keep me with Him in obscurity.


Jesus also told me that the things I shared on my blog were like little flames of light, and that He was using them in His own way to spark other things, and that it was better for me not to know all that He was doing with them, because it would overwhelm me and I would begin to feel responsible for continuing to cause such things to happen, and I wasn't causing them to happen in the first place- He was.


Those things that Jesus initially explained to me has been confirmed many times over the past year. So I have carried on and grown in my faith and understanding and kept writing in my journal and sharing what Jesus asked me to share and eventually, I began to find others whom God was using in similar ways, to be encouraged by them and to learn from them, and I have found many, and I appreciate them all.


I have sometimes been scrambling to understand everything that I have been learning. After only a short while, I had to sit down on the floor in the bedroom and quiet my heart before Jesus and ask Him, very seriously, if there was something more or greater and different that He wanted me to do than what He had first told me.


In answer, Jesus gave me a portion of a verse- "by the word of their testimony," which I vaguely remembered was a quite powerful verse and had to do with overcoming.


Then I looked up the verse, to understand it better:


Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:

“Now have come the salvation and the power
    and the kingdom of our God,
    and the authority of his Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
    who accuses them before our God day and night,
    has been hurled down.
They triumphed over him
    by the blood of the Lamb
    and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
    as to shrink from death."

Revelation 12:10-11

A lot of understanding opened up to me, as I read this passage- how so many things in my life have left me particularly vulnerable to accusation, and yet Jesus' redemptive and healing work in my heart has set me free from those old accusing lies.


This is how I have come to understand my writing and what Jesus expects me to do. Many times when I write, I am drawn back to that passage in James:


But the wisdom from above is first of all pure (undefiled); then it is peace-loving, courteous (considerate, gentle). [It is willing to] yield to reason, full of compassion and good fruits; it is wholehearted and straightforward, impartial and unfeigned (free from doubts, wavering, and insincerity).
And the harvest of righteousness (of conformity to God’s will in thought and deed) is [the fruit of the seed] sown in peace by those who work for and make peace [in themselves and in others, that peace which means concord, agreement, and harmony between individuals, with undisturbedness, in a peaceful mind free from fears and agitating passions and moral conflicts].

-James 3:17-18

So now I pray to Abba, our Heavenly Father, that as beloved children, delivered and transferred from darkness and into the kingdom of the Son of His love, Jesus Christ our Lord, in whom we have our redemption through His blood-

May we be filled to every measure of the fullness of the love of God and abound in every good and perfect work of love, being knit together in love and growing up together into the fullness of the measure of Christ, who loved us and gave Himself up for us as a perfect sacrifice-

Though having in Himself all the fullness of God, He emptied Himself of all privileges so as to assume the guise of a bond servant, in that He became like men and was born a human being, carrying His obedience yet further,  even to death on the cross, that He might present us perfect and holy before Abba-

Therefore, shining as a city of Light set on a hill, may we  never pause to ask our Lord Jesus who is our neighbor, but instead willingly kneel down before the broken and bloodied by the road side, putting aside our dignity, our position and our goals, and lift up the broken, the fallen and the victims, soothing their wounds and carrying them to safety at our own expense-

For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, the perfect and sinless Lamb of God who became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God, risen with Christ and made a new creation in Him, knowing that Abba who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness," is the One who has shone in our hearts to give us the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

As beloved children and ambassadors of the Kingdom of Light and as disciples of Jesus Christ our Lord, may we put aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles us, taking up our cross and daily dying to self, forgetting the things that are past, we press forward to lay hold of that for which Jesus laid hold of us, rejoicing not that we tread down the darkness as we walk, but that our names are written in Heaven, where they are inscribed upon the very hands of our God-

And taking our seat at the foot of the table in the Kingdom of God, we declare with Him who laid His life down for us-

Blessed are the spiritually poor—

the kingdom of heaven is yours.

Blessed are those who mourn—

you will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek and gentle—

you will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness—

you will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful—

you will be shown mercy.

Blessed are those who are pure in heart—

you will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers—

you will be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness—

the kingdom of heaven is yours.

Fear not, little flock, for it is the Father's will to give you the Kingdom.

And so in the name of the Eternal and Living Father for Whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, and in the name of Jesus Christ, to Whom every knee shall bow and every tongue confess as Lord, and in the name of the Holy Spirit, our comforter, guide and standby-

We ask that we might become one through His Holy Spirit in love,

that everyone may know and definitely recognize

that the Father has loved us all with an everlasting love,

reconciling the world to Himself through Jesus' death on the cross.

Now to Him who is able to do abundantly above anything we could ask or imagine by His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations.

May the peace of Christ guard your hearts and minds,  being renewed by the refreshing water of the Word and the cleansing breath of the Holy Spirit, and leaning your whole self in faith and trust upon Jesus Christ, knowing that He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it, and will preserve you, body, mind and spirit, in faith, hope and love, until that day when we see the face of our Lord Jesus Christ- becoming to Him His glory, crown and dwelling place, and He to us, our Lord, Life and Heaven.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!

Amen.

July 11th

The mornings are growing slowly darker. I wake up and think maybe it's going to rain, but it's only that the light is starting to shrink back. It comes eventually and turns the fence gold and then, reflected, it shines through the glass door and across the surface of the coffee table.


Not this morning, though. This morning, mist is clinging to the ground, softening the view and diffusing the light. We stood at the back door, Merissa and I, and stared thoughtfully out at the damp back yard.


Last night I had to admit that Merissa had outgrown her usual bath- a blue plastic container with reassuring rubber edges, so I set it aside and filled the regular tub with three or four inches and set the baby therein. She looked much more at home there, sitting amid bubbles and bright, chewy letters and numbers that bobbed on the surface around her.


Worried that she would slip, I hovered close, but she kept her balance perfectly well. A few times she miscalculated when reaching for a toy and almost tipped, but she caught herself before I could and then watched the water ripple out in wonder.


I was kneeling on the bathmat with my arms folded on the tub, my thoughts pleasantly drifting. There was something about the light shining off the water and the white tub and the sound of the splashing that was soothing.


I knew there was a lot I had yet to do downstairs, but it didn't matter because I felt as though I had all the time in the world. I felt as though I were doing the one thing necessary for me to do in that moment- to peacefully watch over my daughter while she happily played in the bubbles.


I've been able to rest in that place more and more often in the last week or so, and that is unusual for me. Usually when I go about my day, I am haunted by the anxious thought that I am not doing enough, that my life should be filled with doing "hard things for God," though I'm not sure what that means.


Before we had Merissa, I felt as though I were wasting my time, not having a child to nurture and care for. There was this sense of futility about my life, that I was simply spinning my wheels, not giving anything back to God, who was at that time pouring His love and presence out on me in a way I had never known before.


Now we have Merissa and my days are full of caring for and nurturing her and guess what? That thought pattern is still right there! I can still come to the conclusion that I am not doing enough "hard things for God," and that I am spinning my wheels.


A while back, I decided to try practicing the presence of God as Brother Lawrence outlined it- by doing everything for love of God. It sounded easy, but I found it quite hard. It's like learning to ride a bike- I keep losing my balance and fall off to one side or the other. I can't seem to go smoothly forward for any amount distance.


Inevitably, I'd end up doing things in a rote way, one task after another, saying to Jesus dutifully, "for the love of You..." and then look around tiredly for the next thing I could do, until one day Jesus had to say to me, Jenny, I am not a checklist. I thought it interesting He put it like that- I had been unconsciously assuming that I could only love Him and connect to Him if I was doing something. Such is my ingrained legalistic bent.


Then I would give up entirely and not go through my day with any sense of consecration at all, just slogging through the mire of anxious feelings about past, present and future events, worries about money, about my writing, how I am never blogging enough or the right things and how I never measure up as a good mother.


I'd wake in the morning and this whole rush of worries and insecurities would seem to reattach to me, as soon as my head cleared enough to remember them. It would seem like such a heavy weight, I had to throw my hands out to Jesus, as though I needed help just to sit up, and He would be there, and He would whisper, remember.


It's such hard work to remember, sometimes!


Trust, Jesus reminded me- does remind me, nearly every morning. Trust that He is there, that He loves me, that He is expressing His life through me and that I live my life in Him. That I am loved, completely, steady, unconditionally and that I am in my life- this very particular, very small life- for a good reason- His reason.


Believe this, Jesus has been saying to me lately. He says it like an invitation. Stop putting yourself to the test and simply trust Me, He says.


That's what He's been wanting me to remember, and I have been remembering it. That's the thing that surprises me; I have been remembering.


Last night, I remembered. It was one of those moments when my eyes were opened to the richness and the goodness of my life. I had a beautiful, healthy baby girl grinning at me while she chewed on an alphabet letter in this incredible, large, comfortable house and downstairs was my healthy, loving husband whose hard work paid all the bills on time. And there was dinner and bed time and peaceful sleep and all was suffused by God's presence, lit up by it, surrounded and upheld by Him.


And furthermore, I was thinking about the possibility of another child, however that might happen, and it dawned on me, in this undeniably clear way, that I would love that child with all my heart, for exactly who they were and that this love would in no way diminish my love for Merissa, who also has all my heart.


For the first time, I had a glimpse of how Jesus gives Himself entirely to each of us. I saw how natural, how inevitable it was. There is no lack of love; love multiplies without effort. It's what love does.


In a deeper way than ever before, I opened my heart to the knowledge that Jesus loves me with all of Himself- that I delight Him, that His love for me is endless, I can trust it completely. I can abandon myself to His love without second thought, without hesitation, with joy. There is no lack.


I was caught up in a current of gratitude. It was like a state of being, peaceful, still, kneeling on the bathmat, caught up in the light amid the objects of my every day life, doing nothing more than being a mother to my daughter and a wife to my husband, and through all and always the beloved of God.


Isn't it good? Jesus whispered to me.


He meant life itself- to be alive, to grow, to love, to be in this creation that He set us in. How life goes on, how suffering and death cannot stand against it, are so small and powerless in the light of this life- how nothing can separate us from His love. We came from Him and we will return to Him. It's like a river that just keeps on getting deeper, a river that can't be measured and that no ships can sail on.


"It's so good," I agreed.

May 5th

This week we closed the windows for the summer. There might come a day or two in the next five months when we can open them again, but for the most part, they will remain shut and locked while the A/C runs its little heart out and I wilt slowly away until the middle of October, when they can be flung open again.


In May, Merissa will be nine months old. Each morning her face looks a little more like an adorable toddler and less like a tiny baby, with her large, perfectly molded head, creamy skin, round cheeks and large eyes that move swiftly, full of intention, focused, taking in as much as possible before zeroing in an targets and then lunging toward them, damn the torpedoes.


When placed on the hardwood floor, she slowly turns in ever widening circles, viewing the kitchen from first this angle and then that one, but mostly being fascinated with the wood grain. She also moves slowly backward.


Her feet touch the floor when in her walker, and she propels herself backward when in that as well. She will appear slowly, in segments, from around the corner of the kitchen bar, one finger in the corner of her mouth, smiling hugely at this leisurely form of locomotion, and also at the fact that she has discovered my whereabouts.


One pearly tooth has emerged from her lower gums and it shows sometimes when she is grinning or laughing. This adds some indefinable something to her adorableness, which I thought could not be added to, until I saw this tooth.


I think right now is the most delicious stage, but I have thought that about every stage since she turned three months. Before that, my memory is vague with misery. I was anxious about everything- how much she was eating, sleeping, pooping. She was so helpless that I felt like I could never relax and just enjoy her, and not much of her personality showed through, though I could see glimpses of it.


Besides, I was so sleep deprived I could barely enjoy anything. I felt as if I were constantly short of something, not just sleep, but time and perception and ability and serenity. I was constantly running short and desperately wanting more of those things.


Recently, I realized I had still been living out of that feeling of scarcity- still feeling desperate for just some more of something- usually time. But it was more than just a loss of time, it was this feeling that there wasn't enough, period. I felt as if I was constantly scrambling, heckled by this persistent, vague anxiety, but I didn't understand it.


I don't remember how I made the connection, but a month or so ago, I reached a different and deeper acceptance that there is never going to be enough time. Children are quite effective teaching aids for this lesson. Time is constantly running out, running between my fingers and I can't hold on to it and I can't get it back. It just flows through. In accepting this, I feel much more at peace.


I think we live in a culture that doesn't want to let go of anything. It refuses to age, let alone die. Choices can never be diminished, they must be expanded! They must be bewildering in their variety. Everyone must be distracted, dazed by the overhead light of the store, by the rapidly flashing commercials rolling by in triumphant procession. Ability to purchase must expand, money can be printed over night, the future must be spent for the present.


Anyway. Lately, I've been consciously letting go of things. Not things, necessarily, but embracing the sense that I can't have or keep everything, and that is okay.


For example, I can be caught up in writing and my daughter can wake up, and I can be faced with the sudden realization that I have run out of time to write. So I let the thought that I was composing fall away. I might never be able to capture it in just the way that I was on the verge of, but that is increasingly okay with me. If it was something well thought out, it will come back to me. If not, probably I need to grow into it more.


I'm moving slowly from one moment to the next, putting down one thing, taking up the next. The things that I'm doing aren't important or visible to the outside world. I am not productive or efficient and my course is frequently altering depending on what I am asked to do in that moment.


But I generally feel so peaceful; much more peaceful than I ever felt before. I also feel an increasing sense of gratitude welling up in me, gratitude for just those things that I have. When I start to feel anxious or frustrated, I now realize that this is probably because I am trying to hold onto something that I need to let go of, or I am bracing for something anticipated in the future. Either way, I must let go in order to be peaceful in the present.


This morning, I stood still in the kitchen, breathing in the scent of Merissa's downy hair and letting that moment open up as it was- she with her tiny tooth, dimpled elbows, wearing  her white onesie, slightly soiled at the neck with spilled formula. It is the most delicious stage, it was the most perfect moment, and I'm so grateful for it, even as it is passing me by.

January 24th

This morning, Meri and I danced around downstairs to the sounds of Tupelo Honey. Like the good girl that she is, she was drawn to the music, looking over at the computer speakers with fascination and jumping up and down in an excited, if uncoordinated way.


In general, she enjoys most of the songs on my Dire Straits Pandora radio station. It is my fond hope that by exposing her to such good music so early, I am inoculating her against any Justin Bieber-esce nonsense that in her future pop culture might hold.


Only time will tell if I am successful in this endeavor.


This morning, I am eating breakfast while it is still warm and the bed is already made and on the fridge, a message of love is spelled out in alphabet magnets: love u kitns.


This message is laid out above the chart for a weekend juice cleanse, which for some reason still hangs on there, despite the fact that I pretty much have abandoned the discipline, and must now figure out what to do with a pound of spinach leaves and other assorted vegetables.


Keith came home from work early yesterday, just in time to catch a cooking show where they were demonstrating the art of the cheese steak sandwich. This particular version was made with three kinds of cheeses, including mozzarella and cream cheese. We were in awe.


"Your mom used to cook like that for me," Keith told Meri sadly.


Those were the days. I suspect they will be returning shortly.


Meri has grown so much; each morning, she looks cuter. She is growing out of all her sleepers and onesies.


When she wakes, she sings to herself softly for a long while, before deciding that enough is enough and she has better turn up the volume and so announce herself to the waiting world, and also to wake Mom.


When she sees me, her entire body is filled with joy and her face is filled with laughter. It's the most marvelous thing. When I carry her down the stairs, I swing her around so I'm holding her wrapped close in my arms, because lately she loves to fling herself one way or the other, heedless of gravity or any other consequence.


"Safety latch!" I declare to her, smiling down at her and she breaks into a delighted grin. She thinks this is a game. But when we reach the foot of the stairs, she likes to stay there, curled up close to me, just looking up at me, and we end up dancing slowly around the kitchen, even when there is no music.


Per her doctor, we have started her on rice cereal. She was not impressed with this foreign substance and could not figure out why it was being put in her mouth. She promptly spit it all out again, as if that were her job. When I persisted, she pouted and looked around her for reprieve, any reprieve.


It broke Daddy's heart, who happened to be filming this event. It is not for nothing that we have dubbed her sad expression "the pouty face of infinite cuteness." It rarely appears, but when it does, to a man we are undone, we are slain. This does not bode well for future discipline, but we will do the best we can in the face of unstoppable adorableness.


Keith had to try the rice cereal himself, as he doubted that my bright expressions of "It's delicious! Delicious num nums! Delicious num nums for you!" held any truth.


Indeed, they did not. "That is not delicious," declared Keith, bitterly.


I tried to explain to Keith the Theory of Parenting When Trying New Things, but that was not the moment for it. Keith was filled only with commiseration, so we ceased Operation Num Nums, knowing that the battle might be lost, but the war was not over.


Two weeks later, she is willing to eat half the bowl- which amounts to a tablespoon, and even manages to swallow most of one spoonful at one go. The rest of it goes everywhere else.


She sits on my lap during this process, because, as her highchair was being assembled, a strap got caught in the place where the instructions strictly warned and forbade it from getting caught- we will not say whose fault that was- and now it seems to be permanent part of the structure, unless we can figure out how to undo the hinges and each time I look at it, I am filled with despair, so my lap it is.


Which reminds me of her last doctor's appointment. It was set for three in the afternoon and coming up on this event, that hour seemed to provide ample time for preparation. In fact, in order to prepare, I had given the baby a bath in the morning, so that she would be all sweetly clean and smelling of lotion for the doctor, who would then be doubtless impressed with my mothering skills.


After her bath, I decided it would be a great idea to give her downy, clean smelling hair its first comb with a tiny baby comb, so that she would be especially adorable. As soon as I did this, all of her cradle cap decided to come loose at once. This was horrifying.


"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, you're beautiful, this is mommy's fault! What was mommy thinking? Don't worry this is fine, this is going to be okay," I was wailing, while attempting to get her hair free of the stuff, but there was no end of it. Baby herself was unaware that tragedy was occurring right then and there, on top of her head and continued contentedly chewing on her fingers.


(I called my mom later, and my mother said the exact thing had happened to her, with me.


"All the baby books said to leave it be, that it was fine, and not mess with it, so I did, until now!" I wailed. "I just wanted to comb her hair! Surely I must comb her hair sometime!"


"No, that is right," my mom assured me. "It's perfectly natural. It'll go away on it's own."


But I digress.)


I did the best I could with it, but I didn't want to annoy the innocent child, so I had to leave it be. By two thirty, I suddenly found myself with a baby with a head full of dandruff to wake and change and insert into car seat, car seat to insert into car, diaper bag to sling in with, purse to be located and directions to be found, just in case.


In order not to lose my phone, I had jammed it into the back pocket of my jeans. Before beginning preparations for baby, I had decided I had better use the bathroom myself, because heaven forbid this need should arrive at the doctor's office, where all and sundry must enter the restroom with me and how on earth? Best not even to allow for this.


However- the best laid plans and all that. Somehow, the phone fell with a terrible plunk into the toilet. This was a shocking on many levels.


Fortunately, the water was still as clean as toilet water can ever be said to be, and so, after a horrified moment of wrestling all my best instincts down, I reached right in and grabbed the phone and then held it, dripping in my hand, and wondered what the next step might be in this unfortunate and unforeseen event.


I tossed it into the sink, realized I needed to wash my hand, realized I couldn't with the phone in the sink and realized I needed to get the phone dry if I were ever to use it again. So I used toilet paper and then remembered the small bit of brown rice still in the pantry, and how that is useful when a phone is wet.


So into the bag of rice the phone was tossed, I was able to wash my hands and then I realized I had yet to even wake the baby up. Somehow I remained calm while waking and dressing a sleepy but mild mannered baby and got her all set in the car seat.


Now I was really running late, so I fished the phone out of the rice and jammed it again into my back pocket- a habit is a habit- and rushed out the door, though rushing is not exactly the right word to use when I was laden down with baby gear, looking a camel about to cross the Serengeti.


I got everything situated in the car and then sat in the driver's seat, only to realize that my butt was cold and, worst still, wet. The phone had leaked its excess water out into my jeans in the short time that it had rested there.


I looked up at the now locked house with a kind of patient despair. I was out of time. There was nothing to be done. I looked in the storage compartment for the GPS. It was not there. I raised my eyes to heaven, ie, the roof of the car.


"Dear sweet Lord," I prayed, fervently. "Please don't let me get lost, ending up somewhere in the bowels of the city amid a confusing tangle of menacing highways and byways, now that my phone might not be working."


And so that is how I arrived at the doctor's office with two minutes to spare, sporting a butt wet with toilet water, a rice gummed phone and carrying a baby with a head full of dandruff. This is also why I will never, ever have an iphone.


At least I found the place. Maybe I should have been praying for the phone as well.

January 4th

A day in the life...

of last month, when Meri turned four months old!

I enjoyed doing this and it taught me two things: I do have free time and my life is a feast.

Early Morning

Mid Morning

 Afternoon

Early Evening

December 16th

I've been wanting to go back and read some old blog posts from this time last year, and today I finally remembered to do this at a moment when I also had the time- those two things do not always coincide, lately. I found this:

*

December 23rd, 2012

Our Christmas this year is still going to be modest and we are not able to travel up to Indiana as we usually have.

We did, however, buy something for Baby- the crib mattress. Keith jammed it up into our cart and then we looked at each other.

"For Baby!" I exclaimed happily. "Whoever and wherever he or she is!"

"Whoever," Keith repeated, smiling.

When I got home, I put away the groceries and then dressed the crib with Winnie the Pooh sheets and bumper pads. The nursery looks much more cozy now. I can imagine a tiny, wrinkled new born lying on those sheets, wearing footed pajamas and looking around with jerky movements and wide eyes.

We are going to take one month to try and do some repairs to our battered finances and then we will take out the loan in February and go active at the adoption agency.

This Christmas has been rough. I always feel as if I am scavenging through all the emotional clutter to get at something meaningful, some small piece of joy or hope or wonder that is left under the pressing anxiety of expectations.

I was cleaning out my bedside drawers recently- looking for something which I did not find- and I came across this scrap of paper on which I had written all the anxieties that had been pressing down on me at that time.

It was a long list and the funny thing was, I couldn't remember a single one of them. None of them mattered, in the long run. All of them were resolved.

All I could remember was how oppressed I had been by them at the time.

I've brought that scrap of paper to mind many times in the last few weeks. I don't know how or when, but I know that everything that feels heavy and impossible, everything looming over me right now, will be resolved and pass away.

As usual, I try always to wake up in the present moment; to be alive here and now, no matter how much I would like to escape into a rosy vision of what the future might hold, no matter how tightly I feel myself to be tied to the past.

Right now, for example, I hear the quiet clatter of the dryer and the whir of the heater, as it fights off the chill of this gray morning.

Keith's sneakers are tumbled at the floor beside my desk and my glasses rest on top of a Christmas card sent from my parents.

The Christmas lights twinkle in a haze of red, orange, green and blue; their reflections shine diffused and soft in the wood floor below.

Lynn sits at the window next to me, intent on some mysterious and pressing matter that only she knows about- a rabbit, maybe.

Right now, I feel worn out, inside and out. And that is okay. Even the landscape around me is resting now, bedded down deep and sleeping in the short days.

After the quietness, a different season will be coming. Right now there is only the promise of it, a light in the dark.

*

I can't help contrasting my life then to this year's Christmas. This year, I'm having to write with one eye on the baby monitor. There is no such thing as free time. If I chose to do one thing, it will cost me another.

I have a new desk, one scavenged from the curb outside Keith's office at work, where it had been left for the garbage truck. It must have been used as a concierge desk. It's very large and only slightly battered and set in what should be the formal dining room in the new house. My windows look out into the neighbor's siding, but they are large windows and they do let in a lot of light.

Beside me is the pack and play with the mobile above it in bright colors, diaper clothes and flannel blankets draped over the edge. Pushed up to the bookcase is a disintegrating cardboard box with unused Christmas decorations still partially unwrapped.

It's sunny and cold, the floors are scattered with bits of dry grass that the dogs bring in with them on a daily basis. Upstairs, laundry lies neatly on the bed, folded but heavily wrinkled from its long wait time in the dryer. I have to decide what's for dinner soon, because whatever it will be, it must come out of the freezer to de-thaw.

Yesterday during out weekly team Indiana, let's get in there, get what we need and get out again shopping trips, Keith and I bought a prime rib roast, to try it out as a Christmas meal tradition. Now I am terrified of ruining this ridiculously expensive cut of meat that I have never before cooked. It's lurking in the freezer as I type.

We are heading up to Indiana the day after Christmas and I'm kind of dreading the drive. Meri doesn't do well even on short trips. We'll probably end up driving through the night, in the hopes that she'll sleep. We still haven't decided what to do with the dogs.

Meri turns four months old tomorrow. She has that adorable bare patch on the back of her head from sleeping and every time I see it, or the way strands of her fine hair lift up from the crown of her round baby head, my heart melts.

She is determined to move and interested in talking. When I speak, she focuses on my mouth intently before breaking into a delighted, toothless smile and shyly whispering, "Huu!"

If she is happy, her whole self is happy. She kicks with happiness, arches with happiness, glows with it. She is rarely unhappy, but when she is, it is as though the world is coming to an end, right now, immediately and we must all run and yell for our very lives.

She likes to be up- sitting up, standing up, held up. If Keith or I support most of her weight, she will eagerly walk across the couch or floor or table, lifting her feet high and placing them down in a determined way. She wants to be on the go.

She has learned how to put herself to sleep, and will fuss if I hold her too long. Now I kiss her ("How many kisses a day to you get?" Keith asks her tenderly, from time to time. Nobody knows for sure, but we estimate in the hundreds) and lay her down, and she will remain there, cooing and murmuring until she falls asleep.

At night, she sleeps straight from six in the evening to six thirty in the morning. Though this has been happening for a while, I have yet to take it for granted, because I can still remember just how terrible it was before.

I wake up lately with this sense of freedom from dread- there is nothing more to be anxious about, the adoption is finished, complete, done. For three years, there was always something weighing down on me and it simply got more and more intense as the journey continued.

Now there are no more papers, appointments, meetings, phone calls, financial worries, unknowns, forms or deadlines- nothing. I can simply love and help and guide this delightful little person as she grows because she is my daughter.

There is just every day life, with each thing meaning more to me. I feel as if I am returning to myself, but softer, with more of the sharp edges worn off.

November 28th

It's unseasonably cold down here in Georgia. I could hear the heater kicking on all night long and this morning the lawn was pale with frost. The sunlight moves around the house differently this time of year. It creeps into corners and slides down the wall, deep and golden and then gone.

The oval window at the foot of the stairs lets in a perfect circle of light early in the morning. For the light loving person that I am, this is a gift and I thank Him each time I see it, for the way it lifts my heart even when my body is exhausted and my eyes bleary.

It's Thanksgiving and there are cars parked along the side of the road and piled up in driveways, as families up and down the street congregate in heated houses, steaming with spices and cooking, overflowing with the television sounds and conversation and children.

Or they are quiet and shuttered, getting through the day one hour at a time, feeling out of place, feeling slightly foolish, the way Keith and I did, when we first arrived in Georgia. We were fresh from the wounding of infertility and that year spent hidden down the winding roads and woods of Kentucky.

I remembered that year recently, when Keith and I were outside earlier this month. He was grilling chicken and I was holding the baby and we were both completely exhausted, drawn way out past what we would have thought we could handle.

It was late afternoon and the light was caught on the tips of the pines and slanting down onto the dry yard. There was the scent of barbecue and smoke, and as I rocked in that mindless, almost effortless dance that one learns with a baby, I remembered that spring in Kentucky.

That back porch was green smeared from moisture- that winter, there has been months of cloud cover. The woods were black and bare, the leaves moldering on the forest floor. The sunlight sparkled on rivulets of water that ran down our quiet street. The sun was lowering and I caught the light in my eyes as it shot through the tangled branches.

We were exhausted then too, from the move and the winter and adjusting to married life. Our entire first year was spent in the emotional roller coaster of his deployment to Iraq; when he returned and before he left, we were drunk on that awful, exhilarating rush of feeling that is impossible to sustain.

After he came home safe, we had to figure out who we were all over again, in a new state, in a new house and a new job, and with the growing knowledge, month after month, something must be wrong very wrong, that we were not getting pregnant.

I was so angry at God. I didn't know Him very well and I was carrying so much heavy religious baggage. Sometimes I still bump up against the broken shards of it inside me; sometimes it feels like I'm living inside the ruins of an abandoned factory, made to make me into the person I thought I had to be- to press me and scald me and force me into perfection, no matter what part of me withered away in the shadows of those awful, unyielding beliefs.

That day in Kentucky, the spring so early it was nothing more than the hint of something fresh and chill in the air, I leaned against Keith as he stood on the back porch. He was warm, solid and smelled of smoke and barbecue sauce and this familiar scent lit up memories of our life before he deployed and that giddy autumn before we moved.

I knew we would be okay. It didn't matter where we found ourselves or how many deep places in life we had to make our way through- we would find our way back to ourselves again. And that has been true- we went through infertility and two moves and two years of working on the adoption before we held our daughter in our arms.

We thought we were prepared, but there was no way that we could have grasped how parenthood breaks apart you apart and then puts you back together, piece by piece, in ways that would have seemed impossible, before.

It's raw and exhausting; the work is slow, slow, slow and unending, hour by hour, day by day, with sudden, shining breakthroughs, like the first time she laughs and this delights even her and the first time she realizes that her hands can make something move. It's the hardest work I've ever done and most meaningful and even knowing everything I know so far- and I have so much more to learn, about being a parent- I would accept it all over again.

This year, I have been thankful for the most life changing things. There was the phone call to tell us that two complete strangers had insisted that Keith and I be the parents of their unborn girl, despite the fact that they should never have seen our profile, and the moment that I saw my daughter for the first time, attached to tubes and machines and nearly swallowed up by the tiniest diaper the hospital had on hand, and putting this tiny person into the car seat and actually driving away with her, because she was healthy, putting on weight, breathing on her own, and ours- our own daughter, a member of our newly expanded family.

This fall, I have been thankful for the most elementary things- for the ability to crouch down before the refrigerator and then to rise up effortlessly, turn easily on my hips and walk to the counter, for Meri falling asleep on only the second time I put her down, and for the light at the foot of the stairs.

October 31st

Holy crap, I think I have time to write, and I must seize the moment.

I have a crockpot meal going, the smoky scent of the pork carnitas drifts in the air, along with the tinny, electronic notes of Meri's swing. I tried lulling her into the swing with the soothing notes of ocean waves or jungle birds, but she will have none of it.

She clearly prefers one themed jingles repeated endlessly; something like a particularly annoying ice cream truck circling the house again and again and again and again. That's okay though, she has lots of time for her musical appreciation to develop. I'm sure by the age of two that she will prefer Bach's cantatas and Mumford and Sons.

I am in the throes of sleep training. Sleep training is when you realize that you have done everything all wrong and that everything is coming back to bite you in the ass at two o'clock in the morning, when you would, naturally, prefer to be sleeping, and so one temporarily does things that worsens the situation in the hopes that, in the end, everything will improve. You will sleep, Baby will sleep and husband will sleep. It will be Goodnight Moon, everybody.

That's the dream, the goal, the illusion that taunts at the end of a long night of putting Meri down drowsy but not asleep, which she does not appreciate and protests most vehemently, over and over and over and over again.

This is, by the way, the exact opposite of the advice that I had started out with, advice that my first baby book gave so convincingly- to hold baby until she had fallen completely asleep- in deep, solid sleep. I mean, who's going to argue with that? Who wouldn't want to hold their adorable, cherished, little tiny baby girl in their arms while she peacefully drifts off into happy slumber?

Apparently, no one who wrote it heard anything about "sleep associations" and that once Meri ceased to sleep like a newborn and began instead to have short, light sleep cycles which would cause her naturally to wake several times in the night, she would need those sleep associations to get back to sleep, and if those sleep associations are my limp, aching arms twitching in exhausted sleep, she will make very sure to inform me of her need for said sleep associations.

As an aside, I have the most toned, shapely arms in the history of my having arms. I'd be down right slim if I wasn't addicted to chocolate and other forms of fatty foods. I guess if my body can't get sleep, it will demand chocolate.

My back is better, that is something that I am grateful for, every single day. There was a time when I couldn't sit, stand or walk without aching, stabbing, debilitating back pain that spread down my leg all the way to my foot and out from my hip into my stomach.. I had to kneel on the floor to change Meri's diaper instead of bending over the crib- I couldn't bend at all- and couldn't use the Moby wrap, obviously, or sit in the computer chair, even if I'd had the time to write. Hell, I couldn't get to the lower cabinets to put away the 12" sauce pan. I couldn't even lift it off the counter.

I was miserable. I ended up crying on the couch because I couldn't even hold Meri on my lap to feed her without waves of pain rolling down my back and leg. Soon after that, I made a trip to the clinic, where they reminded me that I still had a herniated disk- from that first year of my marriage, when Keith was deployed and I was working in an assisted living home. The pain had gone away, but the injury never does. It's always there, lurking, looking for an opportunity to strike again.

They gave me a shot of something or other and some medication and some back stretches, which I now do, religiously, whenever I can get Meri to fall asleep in her bassinet, and I did a lot of walking, and now I am almost back to normal and can wear Meri in the wrap, which was an elevated manner of living to which she was very accustomed and which she was not happy to give up.

The neighbors around here go all out with their decorations- there are ghosts across the doors and skeletons half buried in the landscaping, decals on windows and gravestones on front yards. We had a pumpkin for a while and then, after a week or so, caved in to the unspoken peer pressure of the houses across the street, and bought some cheap foil decorations which are now hung, somewhat haphazardly, on the wisteria tree.

If this is what they do for Halloween, I am in big trouble for Christmas. It's not that I wouldn't love to decorate everything to the nines, it's just that it costs so very much and right around the holidays is when I have the least amount of money for it and even though, each year, I tell myself I will be all housewife-ly and clever and coupon clip-y and buy the decorations after the holiday, when they are half price, I never actually remember to do it.

We are heading toward that Indiana ideal of three attached garages- one double, one single, with an even larger pole barn in the back with space and height for snowplow, and one shed. This is my husband's heritage and our eventual car housing/storage goal in life- we built this house specifically to create a custom, larger garage and now we have purchased a storage shed.

I think this is as far as we can go in this house, but you can bet in our next house we will have all the car storage that my Indiana farm raised tank commander could possibly imagine, and that is going to be a lot. He's already been talking about getting a golf cart and "just a little bulldozer." Purchasing the John Deer ride-on lawn mower is just a given, of course.

I would end with a cute little picture of Meri in her adorable Halloween costume, but I couldn't find any adorable costumes in her size- two and a half months. The only thing I could find was a little kitty outfit in neon pink with black tights, and she is currently not wearing the tights, because putting them on and taking them off again at every diaper change drives us both a little nutty. Also, I bought the outfit two weeks ago and though the tights are still many inches too long, the top only fits now with the back buttons undone.

I assure you, however, that she is still very cute.

October 24th

We drove past the old house recently. It was the first time I'd seen it since we'd left in mid August. There was a rental sign on the lawn, which had been mown. It looked neat and clean and empty.

I remembered the view from the kitchen sink and opening the French doors to the pool every morning, to look at the sky through the trees and the way the roar of the traffic on the highway grew louder as the leaves fell each autumn.

The first day we were there, there was no furniture but the pale yellow walls caught the spring light. I sat down on the rug in the empty living room and wrote in my netbook. The pool was a slimy green mess and Abby fell in, trying to sniff something. We slept on the slowly deflating air mattress and had cold cereal and strawberries for breakfast.

I miss it; I knew I would. I went through too much there. This time of year, I often think back to that first autumn when my spirit was lit up inside with God.

Yesterday I took Meri to the park. I've been thinking of doing that for a while. The leaves were dusting the road as I drove there, past our old housing development.

The sound of the wind was all through the trees as I pushed the stroller. Meri's eyes were wide, looking from side to side, listening.

It was exhilarating, walking there again. It seemed like forever but I think it was only a few months. Meri got fussy on the way back, so I stopped and picked her up.

We'd gotten out of the house in such a hurry- I'd feared that if we paused, we'd never have the guts to actually get out at all- that she was still wearing her teddy bear pjs.

We walked down the stone steps to the slow moving stream, murky green and clotted with yellow leaves. The grass was still green and most of the trees as well. If it wasn't for the brisk wind, it would have been uncomfortably warm in the sunlight, but we were tucked under the shade.

"This is the outside," I told Meri, as she looked around, quiet now that she was being held. "It's very nice outside."

Of course, we've been outside before. I take her for walks around the housing development, but it's still under construction and none of the trees are large enough to cast any shade over the road.

Most of all, the entire road is overlooked by house after house after well-groomed and landscaped house. This might not bother me so much, except the only way I manage to get out of the house is to dart out of it like an escapee from an asylum, in smeary shirt and fly away hair and darkly circled eyes.

 I never have time to pull myself together. Meri gives me about two minutes of free time every three hours, unless she is napping and she naps in my arms, which is not convenient for doing anything but watching television. If I get any free time at all, I am frantically running around doing things like brushing my teeth and drinking coffee that's gone cold.

In point of fact, I have written this blog in two minute segments stolen during the past three days, but I am just happy that I have written anything at all. And that my teeth are brushed.

Come to think of it, I better post this right now; who knows when I'll get another chance.

August 14th

Some of the leaves on the trees, bushes and vines down here in the South have begun to turn color, a phenomenon that always amazes me, seeing as how it is still stifling hot down here.

This was the week we were supposed to be moving into the new house and still we are here, amid boxes, waiting day and night for a call that could come at any time.

More and more things get packed away, including things that I should have saved out- like salt and orange drink mix and our steak knives, but we get by.

Keith and I fall into bed each night exhausted just by the extra emotional energy it takes to navigate this period in our life. Not to mention navigating all the clutter everywhere.

Yesterday, I said, Screw it, I'm packing no more! and instead, watched "Call the Midwife" on Netflix. That is a great show.

Way back in the days of our optimistic innocence, we thought we would need only six boxes or so, because the house loan would be closed! We would have weeks to move in! I could move stuff during the day, packing and unpacking boxes one room at a time, all leisurely-like!

Ha.

"So," asked one of Keith's friends- a full bird colonel, a man that in the normal course of Keith's professional career he would hardly get a glimpse of, let alone be friends with- "When is all this happening? When are you officially going on leave?"

This was a phone conversation- Keith had his phone on speaker. He gave me a wry look across the dinner table.

"At any time- they've had to stop her from going into labor three times already," I answered.

"So... Wow. How are you going to manage the move then?" the officer asked, confused.

"Indeed," I answered, amused.

Fortunately, my sense of humor is still intact. This is good, because I think I will need it.

We do have several plans in place- they are all slightly different, extremely complicated and alter by date. We hope like hell not to have to use any of them and that Baby remains in place until her due date, but no one thinks that will happen, at this point.

We have a scheduled conference call with our adoption specialist to help prepare us for the up coming visit and the time spent in the hospital.

Everyone is being generous and accommodating- even the bank and all their loan officers and inspectors. The loan is already out of underwriting and the final walk through is scheduled- it might even be today. That's record speed, right there.

In the meantime, I try to keep up with the laundry so we have all the clothing ready to pack at any moment and I pack one or two boxes a day.

I do think, in the years to come, that I will look back at this period of my life and wonder how on earth we made it through, but that happens so often in my life.

I thought the entire domestic infant adoption process would be impossible for me to manage! I thought it about completing the home study, the home inspection, the interviews, completing the pamphlet and the first phone call with the birth parents.

And yet I did manage those things and I continue to do so. And not just to manage them, but to live deeply in the process and sometimes even be creative in the midst of it.

That last poem I wrote, I love the best of anything I've written. I think those metaphors must be self explanatory, but there was one that puzzled me even as I wrote it. That is, I had no idea why I was writing it that way.

I talked about blown glass goblets and letting them shatter into a pathway like light on water. I loved those lines as I was writing them, and it felt powerful to write it out, but I had no idea why I was writing it or what it meant.

It took me a little while, but I figured out what it meant- the goblets are the things I do and believe that I might think makes me worthy of God- what I think of as my "good works and right thoughts," putting my best face forward, so to speak.

Throwing those small self created things down in the face of the mystery- letting those things shatter in the face of His presence- that's what I was writing about.

I guess it's a way of acknowledging one's humility and it made a beautiful path for Him to come to me. Instead, I lay my whole heart out on the table. It's not as pretty, it's not dainty- it's raw, but it's real, unadorned and all His.

And the thing is, He makes Himself vulnerable as well. In fact, He offered Himself this way first, and because He makes Himself vulnerable in love, I can follow suit. So the brokenness turns to heady sweetness, in the end.

August 9th

If I'm going to be able to blog at all in the coming weeks (and then months and who knows, years), I must begin to practice the art of "write and post," which is sort of along the lines of "wash and wear."

This will be in contrast to my usual method, which has been to write and agonize, re-write and agonize. Sleep. Re-read and post. Agonize.

I won't have the energy or the time for all that agonizing- which isn't necessary anyway- and I do want to continue blogging, so I will try this way of doing it. Naturally, this means the quality of my blog posts will go down, this post being case in point, one.

Baby is still right where she should be and growing, and we all have hopes she will remain there for the next week and a half, most importantly. After that, whenever she arrives is fine by us.

I have purchased a Moby Wrap. This is an anaconda sized wrapping that is primarily used to torture aspiring moms who wish to "wear their baby."

Clearly, I am one of these crazy dreamers. I have practiced the art of Moby wrapping with a teddy bear and I remain optimistic that I can at least get myself swaddled- I am not entirely sure about Baby.

Seriously though, I want to spend as much time as possible holding Baby, not just because, at this point, I cannot imagine ever wanting to put her down, but also because I want lots of bonding time.

She's spent all this time getting to know her birth mother- her heartbeat, her voice, her moods and rhythms, but soon after birth will be presented with a completely different woman. I know this will be a jarring and painful experience for Baby to go through, so I want to keep her close so she can get to know me. I want to grieve this loss with her and assure her that I love her, just as she is.

We had our preliminary walk through of the house yesterday. It looks beautiful. The paint needs to be touched up and some of the doors stick. Still, the downstairs is full of light from two huge windows and a glass inset into the back door that all look out into our flat, sunny backyard.

I came down the narrow stairs and saw a glimpse of the landscaping through the oval window set by the front door. I realized that if all goes well, I will be seeing that same view day after day as the seasons change, as I carry Baby down the stairs each morning.

We thought we'd be fully moved in the house by this point, when we were looking ahead, so we are way behind schedule and at any time, we could get that call and drop everything and head out of state for the birth.

It amazes me, sometimes, how well Keith and I are managing everything, considering. It would be easy to turn into the calico cats and tear each other to shreds under the stress, but so far we have managed not to do that.

We did have a major argument a few days ago, where we each thought the other was being ridiculously unreasonable and mule-like. In these cases, I have learned to take my anger into the kitchen, where I can vent my frustration without him knowing it.

My husband's anger has an orbital quality to it- it propels him out of the atmosphere where conversation is possible and into some private place of his own and there he remains, circling the issue and burning up rocket fuel until he begins slowly to re-enter earth's atmosphere.

Then we can talk about it. In the meantime, I've learned to validate my own anger privately- this took some time to learn, but it works out better this way, especially because his anger usually triggers my old flight or fight response and I need some space to tell myself that neither of those options are necessary.

Yesterday, Keith came home for lunch and stole one of the chips off my lunch plate.

"If I were in elementary school, I would have taken them all," he told me.

"And that would have meant that you liked me!" I pointed out.

Keith grinned; he stealthily reached over and pulled my entire plate over to his side of the table and then raised his eyebrows at me. I smiled and batted my eyelashes at him.

He can be thankful that we are, indeed, not in elementary school anymore, because if so, my response would have been to leap from my chair, chase him down and pummel him- that's how I would have shown him just how much I liked him in return, back in the day. I was a war-like and yet dreamy little tomboy in my youthful years.

As I was putting things away, Keith came up behind me and put his arms around my waist. "I don't just like you," he murmured, "I love you, you little kitten."

My mother in law called yesterday. During the conversation, she began to tell me about a beautiful experience she had with the love and presence of Jesus- she felt Him draw close and speak lovingly to her.

"....maybe you think I'm crazy," she finished shyly, her voice trailing off, on the other end of the phone line.

Love and good humor rose up in me in the most delightful way. I thought about all the things I could say in response to this, considering my own inner life.

"No, I don't think you're crazy at all," I assured her, my voice rich and sure. "I completely believe you. He does say the most loving things."

"It was... incredible. That's one of your words," she said, shyly. "You use that word a lot."

I burst out laughing. It's so true; I do- that and the word, extraordinary. But I can't help it. So often life is beautiful and incredible and extraordinary.

I watched a TED talk yesterday about a woman who hears voices. All day long, I avoided watching this talk, for fear that I would hear her story and be forced to come to the awful realization that instead of having a rich, inner life with God, I was simply insane, delusional- not that there's anything simple about that.

In fact, I forced myself to watch it just to face the fear, realizing that it would be the only way to be free of it. Five minutes into her story and relief had already filled me. Her story was moving and inspiring, and I could relate to many aspects of her healing journey, but her way of experiencing herself and the world was nothing like my inner spiritual life with God.

Life is just mysterious, full of beauty and pain, brokenness and healing. But I believe the beauty and the love go deeper- this beautiful and living Love is first and will be last, and sometimes, we are drawn into this beauty, this love that is written right into life. Love can open up like a landscape and take our breath away.

When we were in Indiana, my mother-in-law gave me a long belated birthday card- she hadn't been able to send the package, due to the cost. In the card, she'd written that she was so grateful to have a daughter-in-law who "loved the Lord with all her heart," as she had written in her looping handwriting, inside the page.

"Thank you so much," I said gently, putting the card down. "But I was wondering- how do you know? How did you know that I love Him with all my heart? I hardly ever talk about Him."

She leaned across the small card table in her little apartment, her face earnest. "You don't have to say anything," she said firmly. "I can see it in your eyes. It's just the way you are."

I suppose that is something like Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation:

"We all slowly learn how to live in what Thomas Merton would call the True Self- who you are, and always have been, in God. Who you are in God is who you forever are. In fact, that's all you are, and it is more than enough. Everything else is passing away. Reputations, titles, possessions, and roles do not determine our identity. When I hand out the Eucharistic bread I love to say to the assembly, "You become what you eat. Come and eat who you are- forever!" You access Great Truth by absorption and digestion, almost never by analysis or argumentation."

-Richard Rohr, Adapted from Eucharist as Touchstone